ryaner

In Toor townland and neighbouring (to the east) Lugglass Upper, in a little glen north-east of the peak of Church mountain and almost directly north of Corriebracks, up through sheepy fields, surrounded by stones and mounds that could be, may be, a very neolithic environment vibe to it, there is this group of monuments.

This first part of the track is drivable but behind a farm gate. Just keep going up this track, stay undistracted by the banks, clumps, maybe fallen menhirs – keep going. I had the, as it turned out, fantasy that I might head up to the peak of Church mountain and over to some monuments on its western side – laughable notion in this heat.

After a while you come to another farm gate, directly ahead, not off to the left at the farmhouse where the standing stone is. Over this and about 100 metres in you must ascend the bank to your right. Up here on a flat, boggy plain, are the two stone circles and the henge.

The whole area is like a vast theatre gallery, with the gap between Slievecorragh and Church mountain the proscenium arch. Through here, way off in the distance to the north-west, there is one hill that pulls the attention of the observer, the Hill of Allen, full of Fionn MacCumhaill folklore. It really is quite a distance away, but on a clear day like the day I was there, it seems to float above the plain of Kildare, calling to the observer, attention seeking, and the star of the multi-faceted display up here.

At this, the southern stone circle, the flat face of the southern-most stone faces inwards, a big boulder; the next one on the arc towards the west is nondescript but again has its flat, shaped face facing inwards, today with the jawbone of a sheep on top and a sheep’s skull nearby. The westernmost stone leans in, again with the flat face facing inwards. The northernmost stone leans out, it’s flat face facing outwards. I think there may have been a sixth stone at one point.

The most eastern stone is almost buried, barely peeping out above the heather-covered peat. The interior is artificially flattened and again, it’s hard not to believe that there wasn’t another stone between the easternmost and northernmost stones, as that would suit the geometry of the place, but that sort of speculation can only lead one down to path to yet further contemplation of many more stones. In and of itself, this little known and small in stature circle is very near perfect.

Sitting here writing these notes I’m getting the yen to go back there already. As with all of the other sites here, the views are great, north-east towards Mullaghcleevaun, over the reservoir at Ballyknockan towards Sorrel Hill, again north-west through the gap towards the Hill of Allen. Sphagnum moss continues to grow in the interior and winter up here would be wellies’ terrain.

From the parking place directly south of the summit of Sorrel, on the road that comes up from Lackan, a track begins heading north that will bring you to the top. The path has been eroded/created by hillwalkers, a not very numerous bunch, but enough to wear away the ground. As I ascended I appreciated for the first time the majestic sweep of the curve created by the ridge of hills beginning at Sally Gap and Carrigvore and containing east to west Gravale, Duff Hill, Mullaghcleevaun east and west and Black Hill with Moanbane and Silsean over its back. North of here, but hidden by Sorrel itself, are Kippure, Seefingan and Seefin, Corrig and Seahan.

All over this side of Sorrel are many deep cut trenches into the peat, relics of turf-cutting, and as I ascend there are a few little stone structures that could be something, could be nothing. Further up, Tonduff appears through the Sally Gap and then Kippure. More trenches up here and one can’t help but wonder at the toil involved this high up – desperate times – though once the work was done, bringing it home was an easier downhill trek.

The summit of Sorrel is a flat, rubble-strewn wasteland of granite and sand, eroded, like the cairn it contains, by wind, rain and humanity. The view to the north really opens up now, and south-west over the reservoir are Slievecorragh, Church mountain and Corriebracks.

The cairn is wrecked, with people removing the lower stones and placing them atop, creating a different shaped structure with two distinct aspects. A lot of the exposed rubble consists of larger than normal boulders, leading one to think that much of the smaller covering material is now gone, revealing this more robust core. And it’s quite small, maybe 10 metres in diameter, looking bigger from a distance as it’s higher than normal with all the interference.

There is the sensation that you are at the centre of a bowl up here, with just the gap to the west and the reservoir, but directly west and lower is Lugnagun, with its tomb and cairn, compensating for the gap and furthering the illusion. The ridge that skirts the N81 at Kilteel, from Blessington to Slievethoul, closes the north-west view. There is a slight parallel here with the ring around Slieve Gullion and Calliagh Berra’s House.

The descent back down to the car is easy, the spring in your step aided by the new layers of sphagnum moss and the orchestra of chirping birds. There are other secrets on Sorrel Hill, but they’re for another day.

Access to this is simple, 250 metres or so up a hillwalkers track at O125205 on the left-hand side of as you travel south on Military Road in the Featherbeds. For this reason I’ve been here many times, but never wrote about it until now.

Off the track about 5 metres into the peat is this wonderful stone, the connective evidence between bullauns and prehistory. There’s nowt else close by, the nearest early christian site about a mile below at St. Anne’s in the Glenasmole valley. Others have noticed an alignment here.

The stone is a big lump of granite, like a beached walrus, with 3 bullauns, 2 of which breach the south-east end. One of these two could scarcely be called a bullaun as it’s just a carved curve into the stone, but the density of the stone is very porous and all three basins seem to have eroded, and enlarged, over time.

Strangely enough, this stone is not marked on OS sheet 50, but is on archaeology.ie. I was first brought here by Fourwinds about 8 years ago.

Dublin City University have recently modernised and expanded their sporting facilities. There is an entrance on the Ballymun Road, just after the petrol station on your left as you travel north. Through here and around the back of the all-weather GAA pitch is the Poor Clares Convent. At the back of this is the mound.

I’m really surprised that the opportunity to excavate this site wasn’t taken before or during all the groundwork that happened recently. At the very least they could have cut down the sycamores that have colonised the mound, but that’s just me being selfish, wanting to open up this bit of urban prehistory.

Very hard to make out what’s under all the vegetation so I’ve added the SMR entry below. The height could lead one to speculate that it’s a Norman motte, but the diameter’s only 15 metres, so a tad too small for one of those. Great that this still survives amongst all the urban sprawl, though really only one for the completists.

I approached this site from the bottom of the cliff in Hollywood glen at N934024. There is a small waterfall on the east side of the road that runs through the glen and just beside this is a pumping house. Directly opposite this you can see a track up towards the cliff-top. It is extremely steep and arduous.

This is called a rath here but I’d say promontory fort would better describe it. It’s D-shaped, with the straight line of the D to the east and the maw of the cliff. It’s maybe 40 metres north-south, but the ditch, where it can be seen below the vegetation, is impressive. There are some earthfast boulders peeping out of the structure of the defences but it’s hard to say what the bank is made from. Allowing for silting over time, I’d say possibly 3 metres in places from bottom of ditch to top of bank.

There are no traces of any structure inside the small area of the fort, which has space for one homestead. Did the people who lived here, if this was a habitation site, build the stone circle below? The views west down to the N81, where traffic blasts noisily by, and across the Kildare plain are great. North-north-east the cairn of Slievecorragh is visible.

The long axis of the standing stone, almost NW-SE, points NW directly at the stone circle below. South-east is the peak of Church mountain with its cairn, though this is not visible from here. There is a handy stone placed at the base of the standing stone, probably used as a comfortable viewing seat with the narrow axis of the stone as a backrest, to look down on the stone circle. The stone now leans to the north-east. It’s over a metre tall.

On the walk across from the road to the habitation site and cairn cluster, we took the more modern, sandy track which at first goes east-west, then veers north-south to the top of the hill. This track is littered with quartz stones of varying sizes. As the track changes direction, it becomes necessary to leave it behind and head across the moor, most of which is littered with various scatterings of stone, natural and man-made.

At the most easily identifiable hut-site in Piperstown, the door is in the southern wall (just slightly east of south). From front to back it’s 7 metres or so and six from side to side, not square but almost. In the 5 times I’ve visited Piperstown previously I missed this every time, even though it is plainly obvious – I guess you have to know where to look, though we just happened on this today (16/6/14). There are other hut-sites scattered on the hillside but none of the same quality, as far as I could see.

We moved on to the cairn cluster. These are still very visible. They are all in an area of about 120 mettes by 15 metres. The fire burnt away the vegetation and the summer last year was so hot and dry that it turned much of the peat to dust. There is the line of 4 cairns that are more or less aligned north-south. The bottom, most southerly is showing much of its mass, about 6 metres in diameter, but low and with no kerbstones visible.

Midway between this first and the second to the north is a large lump of earthfast stone. The second cairn itself has a most definite kerb, best preserved from the south-east to the west and this is the largest of all the cairns at Piperstown, maybe 8 metres in diameter. Just slightly south-west of this cairn, and out of the main line of four, is another very small, low cairn, and beyond that, directly west is yet another.

Further up to the north is a very denuded and low cairn, and then beyond that, the last of the line and the most ‘famous’ one, mentioned in Burl’s gazetteer as having a circle of stones, an interpretation arrived at after the cairn was excavated and found to have a number of small standing stones surrounding it. These stones are still visible, and unlike the ‘body of the cairn which consists of granite boulders, are of a greywacke type of stone. The cairn is tiny, maybe a little over 2 metres in diameter, but is the most cairn-like of all the sites on Piperstown.

It’s quite striking how suitable that Piperstown is for habitation, a low, flattish hill, but still prominent enough to dominate its immediate surroundings. West of here is the passage grave cemetery of Seahan/Seefingan/Seefin and this massif, like at other habitation sites in the area, seems to watch over the place, the ancestors guarding the inhabitants.

A long, ovoid barrow, aligned roughly north-south on its long axis. A very defined ditch remains on the southern end and western flank, dug into on the eastern side. This monument is more like a stepped barrow, or a rath, but not in the shape of this last type. It’s 40 or 50 metres long, by 10 or 15 wide, and the ditch is faintly visible on the east side as well. Hawthorn trees colonise the spine. There is the possibility that this is two conjoined barrows with the one fosse.

Were it not for the modern road that splits them, with its banks and trees, Kinsellastown long barrow, and Crehelp round barrow would be intervisible, Kinsellastown raised on a hill to the south of Crehelp. A line between the two would point towards Baltinglass and just miss out Spinans Hill.

The standing stone is about 5 or 600 metrtes west of the long barrow. Over a metre and a half tall, in a pasture field, on the crest of a knoll that falls away to the west and south. There are deep grooves in one corner of the square-profiled stone that sits down in an eroded pit, 4 metres in diameter and about half a metre deep. This hides the base of the stone as you approach. Church mountain and Slievecorragh dominate the eastern skyline.

Utterly fascinating ring barrow, absolutely stunning as you peep over the bank and there she sits in her perfection. To the south the terrain rises suddenly, forming a kind of tangential platform to the barrow, provoking speculation that these ‘barrows’ are not barrows, but ceremonial henges of some sort. This is one of a few of this type that I’ve seen in and around Blessington with very flattened interiors, almost as if they were designed that way – if they never contained burials, then what was their purpose?

The external ditch, 20 to 25 metres in diameter, the bank, down again in towards the centre covered in rushes and with no signs of a cist or any structure, just a bit of a depression. This site must trap water in the winter, allowing the rushes to grow – it’s not naturally marshy here, quite dry really for a place with such an abundance of rushes. On the northern arc is a rabbit warren dug into the bank, east is a house and back garden with the resident mowing the lawn.

To the south and south-east, Keadeen and Brusselstown are really prominent. Trees block the view east towards Church mountain, but she’s there alright.

This wonderful barrow is at the top of a hill north of Slieveroe, west-north-west of Blessington. The tiny boreen that gives access to the field is almost impossible to park on. Below the hill and to the west, there is a space with enough room for one car, but it’s very tight so I wasn’t comfortable hanging around in case a farmer with his tractor happened by.

About 250 metres south into the field and up, the line of an old field boundary becomes visible. Directly behind this is the ring-barrow (the SMR classification). There is a raised area at the centre, but given that there is also an entrance through the bank and fosse at the east, you could be forgiven for thinking this is a ceremonial henge rather than a burial site.

The views from up here are stunning, even with the dank, low cloud – Sorrel Hill, Black Hill, Moanbane and Silsean to the south-east over the reservoir all look magnificent. North-east is the plains of Kildare. I hadn’t the time that the place deserves, but was very taken by this monument.

I had tried to get to this stone a couple of times before, giving up because of the necessity (as I understood then) of traversing much private property. However, there is an ancient sunken lane that passes along the side of one of the bungalows and up to an old farmstead and behind this to the right is the monument.

On the day I visited there was livestock in the field, but except for one cow, they mostly just ignored me. The blocky stone is large, well above average in height, girth and bulk. There are about 14 cup-marks on the southern end of the western face. Even though it’s in a pasture field, it’s still pretty wild around here – the ground rising to the east towards untamed moorland. Another Dublin megalith, south of Verschoyles Hill.

Having had poor luck finding the standing stones south-west of here (they’re mostly destroyed), I hadn’t much hope heading back into Cork down this road. Unawares, I had already passed one stone and a massive rath and had half decided to give up when on glancing into a football field on my right I spotted this, admittedly hard to miss, giant.

There was a man jogging laps of the pitch, and a couple of kids hanging out around the truck container changing rooms, and there was me, snapping away, completely enchanted by the incongruous siting of this stone (of course it’s not the stone that’s out of place – it was here first). The man stopped his exertions to ask me if I knew what I was photographing – a standing stone says I, a gallán said he.

This almost triangular stone was once one of a pair (see below) and towers over 3 metres tall, almost tapering to a point as it rises. There is one cup-mark high up on its eastern face. Quite a strange prospect, standing there on the touch-line, waiting for its game.

Not dissimilar to its near neighbour, but now isolated in a pasture field on the other side of the local authority housing estate. The SMR record says that this is only visible on aerial photographs, but this is most definitely incorrect. It’s there alright, robbed-out mound, bank, fossse, the whole shebang, nestling above a gully on its southern edge, and overgrown with nettles at this time of year.

I scouted around a while, attempting to get a half-decent shot of the monument, and failing dismally. I might drop back in the winter as access is extremely easy at the west end of Blessington town.

OK, so a confession first – I’ve visited this site about 5 times before, and photographed it each time. I’ve never posted it as I’m not convinced of its provenance. It is marked on the SMR at archaeology.ie and this chap megalithicmonumentsofireland.com/COUNTIES/DUBLIN/Kiltalown_StandingStone.html is convinced, so here it is.

It’s deeply embedded in the soil and has been used very recently as a fairly permanent memorial. I get the feeling that when it was pushed over, an attempt was made to smash and bury it. One for the completist only, but I’m glad to record it.

This site is actually visible from the N81, down on the right-hand side as you enter the town of Blessington from the north, opposite the Topaz garage and behind the Aldi.

When I stumbled upon it and saw its current situation beside a childrens’ playground I laughed out loud. I climbed the tallest climbing frame to take a few snaps, explaining to the mother and her child about the 3,000 year old burial mound.

Absolutely fascinating that this is still here – they even diverted the road around it. It’s quite overgrown at the moment, rose-bay willow herb colonising the southern end, but the fosse and bank are still very visible, with the centre of the mound quite flat, either robbed of some of its material or designed like that. (A lot of the barrows hereabouts have similar problems)

This one is a survivor, lying there as the hustle and bustle of a busy town goes on around it, bang in front of your face and invisible. Great.

4 or 500 metres beyond the entrance to the field with the 6 basin Kilbeg bullaun stone is a small hill-walking track, Pound Lane. It has its own signpost and is an Agreed Access hillwalkers pathway. It leads up Black Hill and in a broad loop back over to the parking place directly south of Sorrel Hill.

Not long after moving above the last enclosed field, it passes through an area called Whelp Rock – this is where the standing stone is. Were it not precisely marked on the archaeology.ie map browser I would never have found it.

From the west the stone has a triangular aspect – this face is also quartz encrusted. The long axis is NNW-SSE and points directly at the passage grave on Lugnagun.

There are many, many stones scattered about the hillside here, with some old booleying sites, and there is that ancient feeling about the place that makes one feel that it could bear more serious investigation.

I had a couple of hours break from an event in Ballincollig and headed into the rolling hills north-west of Cork city near Model Village above the Shournagh river. There’s a concentration of standing stones marked on the OS map just off a very straight north-west/south-east road that leaves the village. Alas, most of these are gone, with the simple single word ‘Removed’ on the SMR database (I should have checked before I left). I think I found one the ‘removed’ stones in the neighbouring Kileen (Muskerry East By.) townland, knocked over, smashed and dumped in a ditch. Most of the others in the locality probably met a similar fate. However, this is a survivor.

It’s about 1.5 metres tall but leaning to the east. The longer axis is NNE-SSW according to the SMR (I had no compass with me). It was a small triumph for me to find this after the earlier disappointment, though it’s not that difficult to locate, about 150 metres into a pasture field down a side road off the aforementioned very straight road. I don’t know what type the stone is, but it’s very slate-like and an almost dark lavender in colour.

A mound, or possible rath, on the road from the N3 down to the Brú na Bóinne visitor centre. Anything in this vicinity could also be a passage grave. It is in a wheat field, wildly overgrown now, but is oval, the longer axis about 25 metres north/south, and 10 metres wide.

A small and charming barrow on a slight east/west ridge above a stream. It’s roughly round, about 10 metres in diameter with evidence of a ditch/fosse and rising to a little over a metre. There’s a lump of very smooth brownstone dumped on top, a handy little stool for LM to rest on as I explained to her about the princess buried beneath. There’s other cairn-like rubble on the northern arc of the barrow. A nice little diversion if you’re in the vicinity which has other mounds and habitation sites.

We were camping on a farm just outside Slane and had to head into Drogheda for supplies. There is no way that I could be this close to Dowth and not pay it a visit. I’ve been here many times, probably more than at any other site. Dowth offers the antiquarian explorer many delights, and not a few frustrations. There is a peace here, something that pulls you that’s beyond thought. But don’t be eager to get into its passages – you won’t be able, Joe Public’s not trusted to mind his own heritage (and with good reason).

The mound itself is getting more eroded where the gouge is, where worhshippers, visitors, hippies, whatever, have built concentric rings from the rubble of the tomb. Their play is not going to effect either of the passages or chambers, but the cairn has been exposed in a couple of places and, like sore teeth, will only get worse unless remedial work is carried out.

The height of Dowth is always impressive, especially when viewed from on top of its eastern arc, or from down where the sundial stone is, easily 15 metres from the base of the kerbstones to the rim of the crater, and would have been higher as both Beranger’s and Wakeman’s old drawings show a round-topped mound.

The tomb is in a pasture field, colonised by loud, hungry sheep. Summer vegetation is covering most of the carved kerbstones – neglect being the lot of Dowth, the poor relative of Brú na Bóinne. But sure what do you want? Another Newgrange or Knowth? Hardly, but a bit of respect wouldn’t go amiss. Dowth, Dubhach, the dark place, best left alone (not really).

A large, almost flat roadside stone in the isolated townland of Toor. The bullaun, or very large cupmark, is on the northern edge of the stone, about 10 cms across and 4 cms deep. There is some folklore attached to the stone here: megalithomania.com/show/site/731/the_dailteen_stone_bullaun_stone.htm

The stone is at the beginning of a gated track that leads up into the area of Toor that has the stones circles and other antiquarian curiosities.

I was working away in town in the sunshine, fairly bored by the struggle of the daily grind. On the spur of the moment I decided to head for the hills. Recently, on a spin around Kilbride rifle range, I’d noticed a second track up the western side of Seahan that I’d never noticed before. It had been covered under the dense pine plantation, but this had been cut about 2 years ago, and this second track was more direct and made the tombs more accessible.

As I drove along the N81 Tallaght by-pass I could see the sun shining on my destination from the road, directly south from the M50 junction at Balrothery. Further on, at ‘New’ Bancroft, the skeletons of unfinished apartment blocks taunt the traveller with their dreams of rich celtic tiger days gone by. Left at Old Bawn Road, right at Bohernabreena Road (past the avenue I live on) and on up to the Ballinascorney Gap – this is rural Dublin, and a further left turn at the top of the gap up towards the rifle range and in minutes you could believe that the city doesn’t exist, blocked from view by the ridge of Slievebawnogue, Ballymorefinn, Seahan itself and Corrig.

The track is situated just below the crest of the road as the view opens out across Kilbride rifle range towards Seefin. It goes directly east up the hill for about 500 metres, then veers to the right and skirts along the edge of the range, outside the tree-line and up, steeper here, until it reaches the moorland above the trees, and then continues across to the peak and the tombs. Seefin and Seefingan cairns have the same shape and profile from this track and you do get a sense that you are approaching the heavens, being lifted up and out, above the mundane, and into the realm of the gods.

Utterly unfit for this type of trek that I am, I struggled on the climb, yet I couldn’t but be awed by the stunning views – the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. North of Seefin passage tomb there is a ravine, a deep gouge high up on the spur between it and Seefingan, hard to believe that it’s not even a 10 minute drive from my house. Lumps of quartz litter the track and you must traverse the inside edge of the rifle range. Up here you are in a special area of conservation, but try tell that to the scramblers and mountain bikers, but maybe they have the sought for licences.

Then it’s the last bit of the trek, up the path to the tombs. It’s late now, and only an hour ago I was in the centre of Dublin city and as I reach the peak I get a dose of the jitters, the car left down on the road, predators real and imagined roaming these parts looking for an easy touch. I’ve done this hundreds of times before and nothing has ever happened, so far.

From here, on a good clear day, you can see the Cooleys and the Mournes and to their west the hills of South Armagh – of course Howth and Lambay are prominent here. The whole of the bay is mostly visible, Two Rock, Three Rock, Little Sugar Loaf, Great Sugar Loaf, over to Kippure, Seefingan, Seefin, Sorrel Hill and deeper into the Wicklows, down to the reservoir and over to the Kilteel ridge, Slievethoul and finally back down towards Knockannavinidee and Tallaght Hill and Ballymorefinn, and even closer in across to Piperstown and Montpellier. The city is there too all across the Dublin plain.

And then there’s the tombs, 2 or 3 passage graves and an un-open cairn. The main tomb is wrecked, a small chamber still covered by a roofstone, scant evidence of a passage and some kerbstones on its southern flank. West of it is the cairn, messed about with on its western side, all loose stones long since robbed or embedded in the rising turf. Slightly north-west of the passage tomb is a small arrangement of stones that was noticed by Tom Fourwinds a few years back, a diminutive passage grave rather like one of the satellite tombs at Knowth. Then south of the larger tombs, another sad collection of stones that mark the wreckage of another satellite tomb.

And all the while I’m here, my attention is pulled continually towards the two tombs on Seefingan and Seefin, like big brothers (or sisters) watching over Seahan and I wonder, with so much else on the list, will I ever return here. You can’t help but notice the erosion that this windswept location suffers – that, and what with the use and abuse of the area by humanity, the place has a battered look. But still it is achingly beautiful, a cemetery of the ancestors, an outpost of peace and solitude with it own views back down to the madness.

About 400 metres North of the town of Donard is Hell Kettle Bridge, fording Brown’s Beck Brook. Another 100 metres north of that is Doll’s Brook, a stream that rises on the southern spine of Church mountain. Slightly north of this, and almost beside the road, is this cup-marked stone. It lies at the southern edge of 2 almost conjoined raths. The southern rath is in better condition but is very overgrown. The defensive ditches of this rath are very visible on its northern side – defences on the southern side where the stone is are the steepness of of the hillock that the rath is built upon.

A very charming place on mid-summer’s day, the late evening sunshine brought out the 20 or so cup-marks perfectly. The grass hadn’t been cut in the meadow and the bubbling of Doll’s brook below added to the atmosphere. The cairn on top of Church mountain is visible from the bridge over the brook.

I’m in love with this stone. It’s hard to be near it and not drop by to see how it’s doing. Its beauty never ceases to amaze me. I like it when the basins have water in them, and I like it when they’re empty. It is a piece of sculpted perfection. The meadow that it lies in is gorgeous too, sumptuous and pleasing with its wild grassiness in summer. The last few times I’ve been here I’ve been accompanied by LM, and once by Paulie G. Both are only half interested.

The flat-topped stone seems to have grown out of the ground to the east, and then drops off by about a foot on the western side. It’s oriented on its longer axis roughly north-south. The four largest basins are concentrated in the southern end – the other two are towards the north-western end, one of which breaks the side of the stone, the other being the smallest and almost like an afterthought.

I get the sense that I’m possibly the only person in the country that comes here, dragging my half interested companions along to satisfy my selfish needs. I’d unearth this stone and bring it home if I could. Almost.

Poor old Broomfields portal tomb – ruined, neglected, overgrown and overlooked. The capstone has fallen and leans over the chamber, on top of one of the portals. The other portal is still upright and there’s a backstone standing, but you’d never tell in the summer as the whole thing is more or less hidden under the vegetation. It’s incorporated in a boundary fence down a well laid farm track, but access is better from the field to the west where you can at least appreciate the quite massive capstone. If you’re looking for atmosphere however, you probably won’t get it here – there’s so very little to be seen amidst the tangle of vegetation and now there’s even trees growing between the stones. Some remedial work is desperately needed at this sad site. I’d be up for it if given permission.

On a misty day, myself and LM ventured up Tallaght Hill to Ballymana and this anomalous site. Said by some to be a stone circle, there is indeed a circle of stones, but they surround a messy oval mound that’s covered in gorse and hard to make out. A fine misty rain was falling and visibility was poor and we were unable to stick around.

The stones that surround the ‘cairn’ are varied in size, shape and type. I tried in vain to take a shot that shows them all. The ‘cairn’ itself is all rubble and vegetation and could be modern field clearance, though why so as this is sheep-farming land and not quality pasture, with many boggy, turlough-type ponds. I reckon that this site bears further exploration, maybe soon and quite likely as it’s only up the road.

Two standing stones, very similar in height and profile, stand about 400 metres from each other. The first, nearest to the road, is a charmer, in a small fenced in, sloping meadow with pathways through the wildflowers and grasses. It’s about 1.3 metres tall and square in profile, tapering towards the top. The second, slightly taller and more rectangular than square, is in a large pasture field, with views, like its neighbour, mainly to the east towards Dowery Hill and further across to Seefin and Seefingan. A curious pair, though not a stone pair as they are not inter-visible.

Another possible passage grave, and so close to home too. Goldenhill is a funny little hill, to the left just off the N81 as you head for Blessington. 274 metres high, but rising slowly and gently from the aforesaid road at about 200 metres. East of the hill is Kilbride, Cill Bhríde (good old Brigid) down in the Brittas river valley, just north of where it joins the Liffey.

I’d never heard of it until I was browsing Herity’s book and surfing the NMR map browser. And there it was in Price too. Three mounds/cairns/raths/possible passage graves. So off we set, 10 minutes up through Ballinascorney, down into Brittas, left at The Lamb just inside Wicklow and first turn right up the incline to the ridge/hill.

You can see the main monument here from the road. Looking west, the fosse/ditch on the east side is visible. There were a bunch of people, the landowner and his relatives, in the field messing about on a quad-bike. We sauntered over to them and asked permission to have a look. He said no problem. I asked if he knew much about the monuments. He said that the main one, the rath, was a fairy fort, and that the second one, the mound to its south, had original stones and field clearance mixed in. He also mentioned that the “heritage people” had told him to “leave them alone”. I remarked that I was sure he would have complied with that without the instruction, bad luck and all that. He agreed.

So the minor one first: Pretty much a denuded cairn, some original kerbstones remain, mainly in the south-west quadrant. It’s about 20 metres in diameter and under a metre high, really just a raised platform. You’d be forgiven for wondering why it was robbed of its stone only to have field clearance heaped on it later. Pretty unremarkable stuff anyway, except that it has such a prestigious neighbour, leaving one to wonder which came first.

Over to the rath/possible passage grave. It’s very impressive, whatever its provenance. The view across to the passage grave cemetery at Seefin/Seefingan/Seahan is great, slightly spoiled by the telegraph line and poles. It really feels that the inhabitants here wanted to be looked over by the ancestors. The mound is about three and a half metres high, the ditch/fosse mainly in evidence on the south-eastern arc. North of east is the supposed entrance with the large stones that, along with the structural stones in the interior, made some think passage grave. These are a bit jumbled but seem to mark out the entrance to the rath/mound.

Six stones of varying size and some smaller ones make a rectangular, almost box-like structure just outside the rath entrance. I’ve seen a similar construction at Knockscur themodernantiquarian.com/site/10620#post-63878 I imagine that this may have been some sort of “contamination/quarantine zone” before you were allowed to enter the rath, sort of like a mini-court. One of these large stones has a gorgeous quartz vein running through it. Another seems to have been split. There is always the chance that these were very late additions – only excavation will tell. There are other large kerb-like stones around the circumference of the mound, in particular at the south quadrant.

The interior is a mess, with 6 to 8 pits dug into the raised floor. These are a distraction to interpretation – it has been said that they might be evidence of huts inside the rath, but I can’t agree, the rath being large but not large enough to contain that many separate dwellings/buildings. There is one very cist-like structure in one of these pits – Price changed his mind about this and said possibly “a ruined hut (door?)” but again I can’t agree. The covering stone here is very much like a capstone and from what I could see, it seems to cover a rectangular stone box.

So what is it? I reckon that this is an old cairn that was re-used as a rath, a ‘fairy-fort’ in common parlance. It may well have been a passage grave, situated as it is almost on the top of the hill, and in the shadow of Seefin and Seefingan. The hill is elongated north to south, and as the rath is situated west of the the summit, the most expansive views are in that direction, over the N81 towards the ridge of hills that begin at Saggart Hill and terminate just west of Blessington. A not very well-known and mysterious place, fascinating all the more for that reason.

Tornant Upper and Tornant Lower is a strange and frustrating place. Both times I’ve been there I’ve left with more questions than answers, confounded by what’s here, what’s said to be here, what may have been here once, and by my own limited ability to interpret all this (dis)information.

When you arrive at the farm gate that has the supposed tomb that’s marked on the OS map, you’re confronted by a small, ridged hillock that rises to about 20 metres from the road. It’s been well interfered with down through the ages and has that digged out, messed up feel to it. Not nice but not intimidating enough to be off-putting.

Burl has a stone circle here somewhere; so has Price. There’s a carved stone with passage tomb art in the National Museum that’s alleged to come from here, ‘reputed’ as the Inventory puts it. Price, on 12 September, 1928, saw a stone here “…with what appear to be incised markings, not spirals, but more like a labyrinth.” He says that it was on a ‘rath’, “…high up on top of the hill – which looks like it has been cut away for gravel.” He then goes on to describe the mound being surrounded by stones and says that they were dynamited. He returned there in 1949 – “Since I visited it in September 1928 … the stone with the concentric markings has been moved to the museum.” I’ve seen this stone in the museum. There’s a shot of it here. I’m not arguing that it doesn’t come from this area, but I am saying that where it’s reputed to come from, “high up on top of the hill”, does not appear to me to be a passage grave. That’s the one down lower, east of the ridge and the one that’s marked stone circle on Price’s map.

The mound on top of the hill, the normal domain of passage graves, looks just like that, a mound. It’s beautifully situated, with a strange gully to its east and not much else of distinction, save its position. There are extensive views to the east into the west Wicklow mountains – Lobawn and Suganloaf, and down the Glen of Imaal towards Lugnaquilla and further south-east to Keadeen. The mound rises to about a metre and a half above the ridge and has an almost flat top, with a diameter of about 5 metres. Pretty nondescript.

Down from this small ridge, directly to the east, is an overgrown mound. Now this looks more like it to me – there are some large boulders in situ that could be kerbstones. North-east of this flattened mound are, I think, the dynamited stones that Price mentions (dynamiting stones from prehistoric monuments? Who’d have believed it?) This circular structure is larger and may have contained a passage and chamber once (there could still be remnants but the whole thing is overgrown). It’s about 20 to 25 metres in diameter and has a field boundary cut into its eastern arc.

Over this boundary is another mound, almost like a satellite tomb as at Knowth. There is said to be a standing stone hereabouts but there was too much livestock around to go hunting. The real gem hereabouts, imho, is the rath about 400 metres away just slightly north of west. I’ve been here twice and have viewed it from the ridge and the road but have never braved the sheep-filled fields between me and it. It’s said to be an altered natural hillock, and from the distance is very impressive. Maybe the next time, if that ever happens.

I’ve tried to get to this tomb on two previous occasions, defeated both times by the forestry, the lack of detail on the map and the many gated bungaloids. Not today however, the archaeology.ie screenshot landing me right on top of it.

There is a field that comes all the way down from the cairn on top of Lugnagun into the townland of Blackrock. Up through this for about 300 metres, along the old path way and over to the north-east for another 300 metres and there she sits in the corner of the adjacent field.

When Ó Nualláin visited the site in 1989 or 1993, he saw much more of the structure than I could see today. The roofless gallery sits in much of its cairn, but any facade or larger stones are now covered by vegetation and soil, even at this early time of the year. There is evidence of the classic wedge tomb double-walling on the south side of the tomb. The gallery faces just south of west. The cairn is almost a metre and a half high.

From the back of the tomb, the view is dominated by the ridge of Kippure, Seefingan, Corrig and Seahan. Views to the west are of Blessington reservoir.

A kind of a disappointment as I was expecting to see a lot more of the structure, but a good thing that so much more than the usual skeleton remains.

Oldcourt ring cairn, robbed out cairn or barrow is relatively easy to get to. It’s in an area that has much of interest, south-west of a large habitation site at the top of Woodend Hill. There are great views to the south and the tree-line that contains Lugnagun passage grave is visible, though a daunting prospect across the valley and up a steep incline.

The cairn/barrow is about 15 metres across and the stony bank is visible at a height of .3 of a metre, though very hard to get a good shot of with all the rushes and stuff. I had her nibs in tow and even though I wanted to, I didn’t fancy the climb to the top of Woodend Hill with her on my shoulders.

OK. So when is a stone circle just a circle of stones? And when is a circle of stones a stone circle? Plezica throws up both questions. And not bad questions they are, as we’re in west Wicklow, territory of the embanked stone circles of Boleycarrigeen and Castleruddery, and of the boulder circles at Athgreany and Broadleas (actually Kildare, but for geographic and situational purposes, lumped in here, along with Brewel Hill and Whiteleas circles too).

Plezica (pronounced Plessica according to Liam Price, of whom more anon) stone circle, for that is what it’s called on the National Monuments Records database, is not that well known. I found it on the NMR a couple of months back and have had an itch ever since. I’ve searched t’internet (not very thoroughly) and have found no mention of it anywhere. There is a Plezica House and a Plezica stoneworks and a few mentions of Plezica on some property websites, but no mention of a prehistoric stone circle, nor any other prehistoric monument of any kind. So Plezica has played on my mind and finally, on Good Friday last, I scratched.

I’m not a great gardener but had spent a surprisingly enjoyable few hours in the afternoon having a go at the back garden before things got totally out of hand in the summer. Six o’clock in the evening is not the best time to head out into unknown territory, but the N81 corridor could have me down there in 20 minutes and the pull was just too much to resist.

There’s a chicane-like kink in the road at Crehelp, below Church mountain, about a mile south of Athgreany stone circle. Take the right turn here and travel for about another mile through the pleasant pastureland in the direction of Dunlavin. This minor road kinks in turn as it drops into a small valley – this is Plezica. There’s a footpath marked on the OS map (sheet 55) and it’s this path that I took (I had a much more detailed screenshot from archaeology.ie).

So once more over a field gate into the unknown. Down the track/path, the site is at first hidden behind the crest of a hill to your right, then comes into view after about a minute. The field is a large one of open pasture and today the cattle are behind an electric fence to the west. The circle is overgrown and pretty nondescript at first glance. Curiously, it’s fenced in with barbed wire and has its own farm gate. The fencing is right up on the raised platform that holds the circle, seeming to have been constructed to contain the stones inside it more than to keep anybody/thing out.

Two trees have fallen within the enclosure and cover the stones in the east and north-east quadrant. None of the stones save the centre stone is taller than a metre. I counted, like Kelleher below, 18 in all, but not as evenly spaced as he describes. Two are of quartz, though one of these is quite small and lies flat and loose on the ground. The granite stones remind me of the boulders of Broadleas, or some of the stones outside the ring at Castleruddery. None of them appear to be embedded in the turf and there’s little evidence of packing, again a reminder of Broadleas.

The circle is most definitely on a raised and level platform, though substantial ploughing of the surrounds may make this seem more pronounced. The centre stone is curious; not on its own there – I saw a slab of slate-like stone beside it that is lying almost flat and is embedded into the turf. New growth and little time hindered any further exploration.

The site is beautifully placed, almost at the head of a valley that slopes south towards Keadeen and Brusselstown. Indeed, from above to the north, there are no other features of substance, though east is the ridgeback of Church mountain, less impressive here than at Whiteleas.

So what is it? A circle of stones yes; but a stone circle? Maybe. Price, who travelled widely in the county, doesn’t mention it. Neither does Burl. Much of Price’s work guided the later mapping and inventorying of the area, and yet nothing. There was much cairn-like material scattered throughout the floor inside the circle. That, and its small size and the fact that none of the stones seem embedded, could lead one to think ‘denuded tumulus of some sort’, the centre stones part of some chamber or cist, the circle itself kerbing. And yet, much of it reminds one of its neighbours, maybe a small derivative of these grander rings.

Plezica may not be all that it promised to be, but it’s still got enough to keep this megalithic adventurer/explorer happy, further deepening the mystery of the sites along the N81 corridor between Blessington and Baltinglass. There’s much more to see out there!

And so to Whiteleas. Sometimes I wonder why we do this: what is it that pulls us through muddy fields, over barbed wire fences, calls us to tread and traipse across land that’s unwelcoming, ungracious, bitter. East of here are the Wicklow hills, free and unfettered, peat-covered, wild and uneasy. But down here is order; straight lines and permissions. Well excuse me to all that. There was a stone circle here once and I’m going to find out what, if anything, remains. Lorg na gcloch indeed.

I parked at Ballysize, Bealach Saghas, the road to god knows where. About face and back across the N81, up the road towards Broadleas and Ballymore Eustace, over the first field gate on the left and back into Kildare. The ground is marshy, reedy and there are two streams to ford.

This is a search for traces. The heroes of the various archaeological surveys have kept at it, pulling together a disparate range of sources, from folklore to old maps, aerial archives and fieldwork. 50 years of the Archaeological Survey of Ireland was recently celebrated with, amongst other things, a supplement in Archaeology Ireland magazine. It contains a short piece about he NMS public viewer, a highly addictive resource for the likes of us here, and I would never have been able to investigate this ruin without it.

Go to the red dot that marks the site and what does remain is a slightly raised platform and two pillar-like stones, one embedded flat into the turf, beside a gate in a large pasture field. It has probably been used as a tillage field in the past. Beyond the platform to the south-east the ground starts to slope quite rapidly down, ending in a boggy swamp over the field wall that is bordered by massive and, in their own way, ancient beech and birch trees.

Face south-east from the platform, for the views in any other direction are flat and obscure, and the eye is pulled towards the cleavage-like display of Sleivecorragh and Church Mountains. Slievecorragh is 418 metres high, Church Mountain is 544 metres high, but the illusion created from our viewing place shows them to be of equal height. Both have cairns. I’ve been to the top of Sleivecorragh and have seen that its cairn has been robbed out and mostly denuded, so its nipple is less prominent than its neighbour.

Broughills Hill, visible further east may well have been the mother’s head, placed as it is in the landscape, but I think we can leave that speculation aside and definitively say why the circle was built here.

When Walshe visited the site in 1931 it was already in ruins. Today it’s nothing but a memory, a trace, with 2 possible circle stones left (why?). What happened? I don’t really know, but sometime between 1931 and 1985 the circle was destroyed. That is the deliberately neutral view. The biased view is that some ignoramus of a landowner, either maliciously or thoughtlessly rode over this place of heritage, smashed all traces of the old (I hesitate to use the word) temple and nearly erased the memory of a people that worshipped the land, the very land from which he sought to wring a few more dollars or shekels or beads. But sure who am I to judge his actions? Isn’t there always hunger? But Slievecorragh remains, and so does Church Mountain, testament enough.

lorg
1.  hallmark(m1)
2.  imprint(n m1)(impression, mark)
3.  impression(m1)(of stamp, seal)
4.  print(n m1)(mark)
5.  seek(vt)
6.  scent(m1)(track)
7.  trace(n m1)
8.  trail(n m1)(tracks)
9.  track(m1)(mark, of suspect, animal)

A quick visit to Mullamast, very accessible off the new Dublin to Waterford motorway, three sites in one: a standing stone, a barrow cemetery and a massive rath.

The standing stone is well over a metre-and-a-half tall, with grooves or channels or runnels at its top, very much in keeping with the nearby Carlow examples. It’s right beside the road, moved here from its original position and coralled by a fence.

Directly opposite is a field with the unrecognisable remains of a barrow cemetery. The only remaining visible example of this is the one in the next field to the north, about 20 metres diameter and much disturbed.

The real gem of Mullamast is the massive henge-like rath in the next field again to the north. The bank of this rises to 4 or 5 metres from the bottom of the silted-up ditch and has an entrance at the east.

Normally on most raths that I visit the interior is raised from the surrounding terrain to aid defence, but the interior of this is level, the inhabitants relying on the height of the bank and the depth of the ditch for protection. Very impressive and well worth a visit.

I’ve visited Broadleas at least 5 times before (it’s right beside the road, a small diversion from the N81 thoroughfare down through Wicklow and Carlow) but have never felt the urge to write about my visits. Today, mid-March 2014, is different, mainly because I made a decision to write notes, however slight, for every site I visit, but also because I was rather more enchanted by the place than at any other previous time.

I’ve recently found the exact site of the nearby destroyed Whiteleas circle so I was in the vicinity on a scouting mission. That mission will have to wait for another day, when I don’t have my 5-year-old in tow, but preliminary snooping is quite hopeful.

But back to Broadleas: now is the time to visit. All nettles and other unfriendlies have died right back and the circle is more visually accessible. The eastern arc is crowded out by thorn trees, but standing in the centre of the circle allows one appreciate the ring. The stones are at the edge of a raised platform, probably man-made, and possibly once upon a time the whole was embanked.

I climbed the denuded tree on the western arc and fired off a few shots, but felt a bit too old to be doing that sort of thing.

If you travel south out of Tallaght, this is the first of the four remaining Wicklow/Kildare circles that you come to. Then it’s on to Athgreany, Castleruddery and Boleycarrigeen. I was very struck by the views to the south-east in those circles’ direction: Slievecorragh and Church mountain pull the eye, and I can’t wait to get to the aforementioned Whiteleas to see what, if anything, remains and what views the builders may have noticed.

Large double bullaun stone in the driveway of a house just outside Ballymore Eustace on the Kilcullen road. Quite a nice garden ornament, it was moved here from a field about 300 metres to the north-west by the previous owners of the house.

It’s over a metre tall and of the two bullauns, the eastern is the best, maybe 12 cms deep and with two run-off channels. These look deliberately carved, for what purpose is anyone’s guess. The other bowl is barely carved, wider and very shallow. Thanks to the owners of the property for permission to have a gawk.

Knocklegan standing stone is now no longer standing, collapsed into the hedgerow and overgrown with brambles. I did a quick tidy up and revealed a roughly 2 metre long stone that would have been reasonably impressive when stood up, but now lies forgotten and ignored by the side of a pasture field.

Marked as a bullaun stone on the OS maps, this is a very unlikely candidate for that title. Maybe the hole/bowl is man-made, but I’ve read elsewhere that it goes right through the stone. It is however revered locally and has a rag tree beside it.

North down the hill from Kilree monastic site with its round tower and high cross is this rock outcrop. There may be a bullaun buried under the grass, but the visible bowl-like depressions are very natural looking. The most likely suspect is very deep and seems to go through the stone, a bit like the ‘bullaun’ north of here at Kilmog.

There is a barrow marked in this field both on the site monuments record and on the OS map. It is, however, on the other side of the field to this mound and I’ve never been able to locate it. That doesn’t mean to say that what I’ve posted here is THE barrow – a lot of the barrows in this vicinity have been ploughed away and are still marked on the records. This little mound though has intrigued me and I made the decision to post it on the grounds that: 1. it exists, 2. it’s right beside the gate and restricts access to the field but has never been removed by the landowners and 3. it looks like a small cairn and has some signs of containing structural stones of some sort. All that doesn’t preclude the possibility that it’s field-clearance but, for the record, it’s oval, 4 metres on its longer axis, aligned roughly north-east/south-west and about 1 metre high.

A large univallate ringfort in this townland, 300 yards from Hazelhatch bridge. This is the first time I’ve seen one of these put to modern use: the owner has, in the past, used it for the rearing of pheasants. It’s now completely overgrown and difficult to access – the large interior (roughly 35 metres diameter) is only slightly raised above ground level. The main defences were the deep ditch, now water-filled after the torrents we’ve been experiencing, said to be 3 metres deep in places and very steep-sided. The causewayed entrance is on the south side – the north side has been cut through by a modern field boundary. Impressive all the same.

Very difficult to make out what we have here. Recorded under the cover-all category of ‘mound’ (there is a reference to it on excavations.ie as Corduff mound), it’s been hacked into on its north-west arc. Very overgrown and in a swampy corner of a field in a housing estate, we could barely make it out in the low evening sun and the decaying vegetation. I guess about 2 metres high and maybe 25 in diameter.

Now a traffic island in a car park in an industrial estate, this mound has been rounded off and prettified. I couldn’t find any excavation notes, surprising as I would have thought an excavation was called for when working so close to a national monument. It’s over 3 metres tall and about 50 metres diameter.

In the Holmswood housing estate in Cabinteely, the standing stone was moved to its present location during building works in 1993. There had been doubts as to whether it was of prehistoric provenance, but upon excavation “... directly in front of the standing stone, on the hillslope side, two small fragments of cremated human bone [were found]. There were no other finds or features but the stone is certainly prehistoric.”

Now about 150 metres away from its original location, the stone has been set in concrete and surrounded by inward-facing, wooden pallisades, in a cobbled ‘courtyard’. Quite considerable thought and expense were put into this by the developer and I have to say that it’s really rather nice.

I had seen this on archaeology.ie and it was on my list. I had a fare to here the other night and spied it as I was dropping her. I asked her whether she knew if it was ancient or not and she shrugged no, but said that she and her friends had played on the pallisades when they were kids. Worth a look if you are visiting Glendruid nearby.

I don’t know what I expected to find here today, but you always live in hope at this game. Well, there ain’t no cist here no more, and even though it may seem like a wasted journey, it wasn’t entirely: I got to see (or rather stop and see as I’ve ‘seen’ it many times) Edward Lovett Pearce’s monstrous 1727 obelisk. I wondered if the stones of the cist ended up in the structure of a renovated base, but no, the crude base is part of the original (see archiseek.com/2012/1727-obelisk-newtown-park-stillorgan-co-dublin/#.UnGUHI3eoy4 for a contemporary painting).

There is an excavation report that I’d like to get my hands on, when I can stump up the 50 blips (see miscellaneous below).

Highlight of the day (and we still took in the magnificent Dowth henge) and a wonderful surprise, I don’t know how to classify this. There’s an ancient pond and this has been enclosed by a bank, well over 2 metres high in places, like you might see in classic henge construction.

I pondered (excuse the pun) the purpose for quite a while, thinking of ritual drownings (recent reading about iron-age and neolithic sacrifices encouraging my more morbid imaginings) or some sort of neolithic baptism or ritual bathing, with punters lining the sides of the enclosure in awe and reverence. I mean, why else enclose the place?

There’s a ditch very visible on the outside to the east. The bank is at its highest on the western arc. There’s an entrance to the north where the stream that feeds the pond cuts through the bank and there are signs of another entrance on the eastern side. I’d like to go back here in say January, when all the growth will have died away and the construction would be more visible. A real treat this.

On the eastern side of the road of the site of the Battle of the Boyne, not 300 metres above the river, are 2 standing stones and a double chambered souterrain. The easier accessible stone is little more than a scratching post, a metre tall and square in profile. The other stone is is the adjoining field to the south.

The souterrain has now been filled in, with just some corbelling and a capstone visible in one of the chambers.

I was browsing the National Monuments Database at webgis.archaeology.ie/NationalMonuments/FlexViewer/ recently and zoomed in on Burren in north-west Cavan. There looked to be a lot more sites marked there than when I’d last visited. In fact, there are 16 separate entries for rock art alone, each with a description. Someone has been busy!

I’ve a friend living in Cavan town, so a two birds with one stone murder seemed like a plan. It’s still a fair old hike to Burren from his nest though, almost the full length of the county, but it is beautiful country. Cuilcagh mountain needs to be circumvented, south on fairly uneven roads, or north, through Fermanagh and back into Cavan at Blacklion. We took the southern route.

The source of the Shannon, the Shannon Pot, is nearby but we kept going as we were late and I wanted to see as much as I could. The Burren archaeological trail is still under construction and there is work ongoing in the forest, including the felling of trees. The first signed site is the portal tomb in the trees on the right.

Next is a piece of rock art – this I hadn’t seen before on my two previous trips. It’s a split boulder with faint cupmarks, some which seem to be in a rosette formation.

From there we moved on to the signed “Unclassified megalithic tomb”. One large capstone-like flag has collapsed over a supposed chamber. Three very worked, almost squares profiled stones lie around it, two in a position that could lead you to believe that this is a simple wedge tomb of the Burren, Co. Clare type.

Further on up the track we came to the Calf House portal tomb. The capstone of this has to be in the top ten of Irish dolmen capstones. Its huge weight has caused the structure to partially collapse and the whole thing is kept semi-erect by modern walling. Both portal stones are now free-standing and impressive megaliths in themselves.

Moving swiftly on we headed over to the Giant’s Leap wedge tomb, east of the portal, down a small gully and up the other side to a flat-topped ridge. This is the show tomb in Burren, and that’s saying something given what else is on offer. As part of the ongoing works, the trees that enclosed this have mostly been felled and the views opened up. Lough Macnean can be spied to the north. The wedge tomb itself can be seen for a good distance from the west. This has to be one of the best examples of this class of tomb in Ireland, still having much of its structure and all of its roofstones. The nearest comparison I can give is with Moylisha in Wicklow.

With very little time and daylight left we headed back over the valley to the boulder burial and its attendant rock art. There are at least 5 marked stones here, two of which I found and photographed. One is a double, conjoined cup and ring motif, the other a simple cup and ring mark.

There’s much more about to be discovered but alas we hadn’t the time. You could pass a very busy full day here in Burren, Co. Cavan and probably still not have completed all there is to see. A great place and highly recommended.